If you can’t figure this out, go back to the cave.
The 4th highest grossing film (so far) in movie history. I really, really wish it could have unseated Avatar. Come to think of it, Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty much Avatar with funny, charismatic actors. No, really, it was about of bunch of humans and blue aliens fighting over some really powerful and rare resource. There’s even a bit where the bad guy is out to destroy a planet.
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One story/ four icons was one of the assignment that I choose to do and it is worth 3 stars. This assignment consist in putting a movie in four simple icons. I think it is like the game you try to guess the movie without talking. So, I choose a broom, cup, fire and hat. I went into the Noun Project and found the icons there for free. I started to search for the specific images that comes to my mind when I heard the title of the movie.
I am not going to tell the name of the movie, but it is pretty easy and straightforward. It correspond to a really popular series movie and books back in the 2000’s.
I will try to remember to come back on Sunday to see if anyone guess it right. Otherwise, I will pose the name later.
One Story/Four Icons: “The assignment is to reduce a movie, story, or event into its basic elements, then take those visuals and reduce them further to simple icons, four of them. Write your blog post up but do not give away the answer, let people guess! The challenge is to find the icons that suggest the story, but do not make it so easy.” (3 stars).
This week, our theme is DESIGN!
This assignment sounded great because I love movies & trivia. And with the help of design and a movie, I created 4 symbols that represent a movie. I like this assignment because I hope others can guess what movie I made!
First, I used the handy website that was linked on the assignment page called The Noun Project. I highly recommend using this site. It contains various symbols that you can use. There were so many to choose from! I just typed keywords that I wanted to use for my movie and downloaded them easily.
After this, I inserted all the symbols I downloaded into a Word document. All I did was resize them and put them beside each other to create the story.
This is my One Story/Four Icons creation:
Hopefully you guessed it, and if you think you got it right, here is the answer!!
(SPOILER BELOW)
I chose The Hunger Games because it is one of my favorite books and movies. I enjoyed seeing the movie, but the book created so much imagery that I actually thought of some of these symbols in my mind while reading. In turn, I was able to quickly think of the symbols I wanted to use for my assignment.
The movie contains Katniss Everdeen, who wears her hair in a braid. She also uses a bow and arrow to capture food in her district, and then once entered into the Games, she uses it to kill. The mockingjay pin is a big symbol of hope for Katniss and her family in the book, so I decided to choose a bird to not make it so obvious. Then, I used the 3 finger icon, which is something the district people do when the teenagers are put into the games. The 3 fingers represents unity when the Capitol seems to be taking over when they arrange the Hunger Games each year.
I enjoyed doing this assignment, not only was it fun, but it also is a form of storytelling that I didn’t think design contained. The icons I added are ones that created a story in my mind when reading the book and seeing the movie. With this assignment, I was able to hopefully urge you to form a story of The Hunger Games in your mind.
—SALTY SKINN
For this design assignment I had to represent a movie using four icons. I cannot tell you the name of the movie, but by looking at the icons you should be able to figure it out.
I had a lot of fun with this assignment, mostly because it gave me an excuse to watch one of my favorite movies. If you are having trouble figuring out what movie it is, I will explain why I chose each icon and hopefully you will get it. I chose to use the glasses because they represent the main setting of the movie. I chose the mask because it is a common symbol of the movie. I chose the two people because they are the main characters of the movie and the scene that is represented is the climax of the movie. I also chose the rose because it is another common symbol of the movie. If you still haven’t guessed the movie yet then I will tell you what it is and recommend you watch it because it is a marvelous movie. The movie I chose to represent is The Phantom of the Opera.
Here’s a belated post for the “one story, four icons” assignment for design week in #prisoner106.
I wanted to do this assignment for an episode I just don’t understand, even after watching it twice.
Here are the icons … can you guess it before I explain below why I am still puzzled by this episode?
I watched this episode twice because I didn’t get it the first time. I didn’t get it the second time. And putting it into four icons didn’t help.
If you didn’t get it, it’s the “It’s Your Funeral” episode of The Prisoner, which, funnily enough, was the subject of at least two other four icon assignments this week I just discovered: one by Melanie and one by John. I love how we’ve picked different things!
What makes no sense to me is the following: Why would they involve Number 6 in the plan to get rid of the old Number 2 in the first place? If they wanted to get rid of Number 2 through the use of the watchmaker, what was the point of getting his daughter to get Number 6 involved? What did they want to do to Number 6, or have him do to others, and why?
Of course, he foiled their plans to get rid of the old Number 2, so from what I can tell there was just risk in involving him and I can’t see the possible reward.
They went through the rigamarole of recording Number 6 telling the new Number 2 about the assassination plot so they could create a film that would convince the old Number 2 that Number 6’s warning isn’t credible. But why involve him in the first place? It could all have been blamed on the jammers who, this time, weren’t joking.
I just don’t get it. Help, please?
At least we got to learn a new sport, and you can always tell Number 2 because he wears the white helmet and the other guy wears the black one. They both have cool shoes, though. And, as Melanie points out, Number 2 has some styling glasses.
I forgot to write up and post this one earlier in the week.
My ideas around escape or rather not attempting to escape seem to be reflected in the surveillance tapes we were directed to watch this week. Number six seems to be more involved in Village Life and made fewer attempts to escape.
My own week reflected this, I got out a bit more and continued to encourage my fellow villagers to join in the Web Club. Joining the webclub give some extra freedoms that may lead to escape. Andrew picked up on this (Terminal Waypoint).
I spent a fair bit of time in the The Village Web Club, providing some help for fellow inmates, to allow them to decorate their clubhouses (add an image).
I also invite any villager to contribute to A Prisoner 106 Gif Story. I’ll say no more now…
Apart from that I managed a few assignments but hit rock bottom with daily creativity. I also did very poorly with the Design Blitz.
I think this one hits a few of the design blitz targets. I like it anyway:-)
Generally I fell pretty negative about design, I think I can recognise some good design but often fail to implement it or understand it in my own creations. (Kathy cheered me up with a comment on one assignment. )
However I did read The Vignelli Canon and found it both enjoyable and useful. It also made me think about where I do exhibit taste in design. I’ve been trying to buy a shoulder bag for a while now. All the reasonably priced ones seem to have magnetic poppers disguised as buckles. This combination makes it almost impossible for me to buy a bag, perhaps I do have a sense of design after all.
Ugg, the buckle points to security, the pop convenience.
“A reasonable alternative is to complete a piece that incorporates two different assignments for a sum total of 4 or more Credit Units.”
So I did the ‘I can read movies assignment’ and ‘the one story 4 icons’ assignment in one cover. The electricity in my tree house is on for another week as I am clocking 6 Credit units and another 2 for the extra hard work to combine two assignments into one. Although to be fair, I took this on thinking it would be easier than doing two. The new number two is clever with words. A reasonable alternative, indeed. I think I should get an extra 2 Credit Units for doing the whole thing rather than just one episode, but that might be pushing it a bit.
Behind the scenes
I wish I had used my notebook as I intended to keep up with all that I tried. A little like our resident artist futzing was a key ingredient.
I started with the idea that I wanted the cover to embody the sense of ambiguity that is the hallmark of the series. I read an amazing blog post today that spoke about the series as it “constantly offering us a seeming chance for escape, then pulling the rug out from under us.” Nothing is as it appears.
The post explores a Prisoner computer game that never tells you that you can escape the game by pressing the ESC key! The tag line of my cover comes from the end of this game. You win and it tells you: To win is to lose. Sheer genius.
The 4 icons are from our friends at the Noun Project. How awesome are they? I bought them all ‘cause I love supporting their artists.
I have been using their icons in my Prisoner posters series as comas and full stops since this run of DS106 started. It occurred to me that may be the ones I had chosen over time would embody key themes. I was right.
Birds singing seem happy and free, and yet the noise may attract attention when it is not wanted.
A prisoner in jail might seem a negative icon, yet prison is not always a bad thing. (I will not explain the photo below to avoid spoiler for participants still watching episodes).
The fish escapes the fish bowl and is free then it dies as it lands.
The sad ghost represents death and suffering and yet, if ‘to win is to lose’ may be to lose is to win?
The cover is for book 1 and it contains the story of 6. Hence 6 is 1.
I used Photoshop as usual. Started with one of the covers from the I can read movies series that was cleanest to get a clean black background with the clone tool. I started with a lot more text which disappeared as the 6/1 tension shaped my thinking. I discovered you can search google by ‘type’ of image as well as usage rights and this can find you components to use in a creative edit. The lapels from the jacket came to me that way. I pulled them out of original image roughly with quick selection tool and then added it in with screen blending option to blend in with the grainy black background. My little friend the colour dropper did its job to blend all the colours well. A little blur tool helped me along.
For the first time ever I grouped some layers so that I could line them up properly. The little icons and its background were a group. I used the Emboss Texture blending option to create a rough look to the background.
I feel I have got as close as I can to the essence of what makes this my favourite series of all time. It is to do with the ‘nothing is at it seems nature’ of it. The kind of story that destroys mechanisation by remembering that what makes us human are non-googlable questions such as why. Awesome.
This constant tension is even shown in the way the prisoner dresses. The lapels of the blazer showing that we have a prisoner dressed in a suit, highlighting perhaps that we cannot tell from external cues who is the prisoner and who is the guardian.
Total time spent: several days to get the bits and this afternoon pulling it together. I wanted to challenge myself so I did my best to attend to small details I might ignore in the usual run of things. Cool challenge, Number 2.
Be seeing you.
Here’s a four icon telling of “It’s Your Funeral.”
“It’s Your Funeral” in four icons (scroll down for credits)
In this episode, we learn a few things:
(1) No. 6 is very active.
(2) Kosho looks AWESOME! This is exercise I fully support.
(3) No. 6 demonstrates some really human characteristics in this episode. He seems almost vulnerable, no? He buys sweets for the woman who blew through all of her work credits. He wants to help the blonde by reasoning into her watchmaker father.
Sure, sure. He says that he wants to prevent the unimaginable punishment torture that will befall the Community, but is that really the only motivator?
No. 6 sure does seem to empathize with No. 2 this time around.
Is No. 6 starting to relate to his fellow Community members?
Other great things from this episode:
(1) The rad pink jackets:
Pink jackets. A change.
(2) The stylish smoking jacket and hipster glasses:
Quite the fashionista
The images are from The Noun Project.
woman – Simon Child . bomb – Edward Boatman . medallion – Creative Stall . helicopter – Pham Thi Dieu Linh
One Story / Four Icons (2 and 1/2 Stars)
Description of Assignment:“This idea was first suggested by Tom Woodward and has been a long standing popular ds106 assignment. The assignment is to reduce a movie, story, or event into its basic elements, then take those visuals and reduce them further to simple icons, four of them. Write your blog post up but do not give away the answer, let people guess! The challenge is to find the icons that suggest the story, but do not make it so easy. For icons a great resource is The Noun Project.”
The Story
Yesterday, my girlfriend and I were watching this movie before we saw the new one in the movie theatre today. She’s never seen the movie before so she was a little jumpy at some of the scenes. It’s a science fiction movie and its very suspenseful. Watching the older ones as a little kid made me wish what was in the movie real! It was the first movie that scared me while I was watching it.
The Process, Narrated
I first started by picking a movie that I recently saw at the movie theatre. Next, I began downloading The Noun Project onto my computer. It allowed me to search threw the many icons they had. When I found the four ones I wanted I dragged them over onto a word document. I then group the four images together and saved it as one image.
Here, I came up with four icons to summarize my movie of choice. So, what type of movie is it? Well, it’s a little bit obscure, so I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody guessed it. Be warned!
What’s my history with the movie? Well, one day I was browsing Netflix when this title caught my eye. When I noticed that it was the work of a certain writer/director, I knew I had to watch it immediately. So I did, and I enjoyed it. Great movie.
For the image, I found some good pictures on NounProject, and copy and pasted them into a Paint file. After I got everything the size that I wanted and arranged it to look halfway decent, I saved it. Not much to it.
